Know, when I write, if chance some happier strain
(And chance it needs must be) rewards my pain,
Know, I can relish praise with genuine zest;
Not mine the torpid, mine the unfeeling breast.
But that I merely toil for this acclaim,
And make these eulogies my end and aim,
I must not, cannot grant. For—sift them all,
Mark well their value, and on what they fall—
Are they not showered (to pass these trifles o’er)
On Labeo’s Iliad, drunk with hellebore,